Halfway Home
by rlb190
Summary: Ever since the Mutant Wars years ago, every mutant had to be registered, cataloged, and put into 'Mutant Camps'. Follow the stories and struggles of the teens and young adults in the Halfway Home in one of these camps. Their mental states and attitudes effect their powers. In this controlling world, they're more then just mutants. They're Halfway Kids.
1. Chapter 1

Looking over Cerebro was never a fun thing. Ever since the Mutant Wars years ago, every mutant had to be registered, catalogued, and put into 'Mutant Camps'. The only few mutants who aren't in the camps are being studied and tested on in Area 51, trying to see if they can improve the weapons they made from mutant powers.

"Any luck, Darren?" asked my friend Maddi. She tugged at her red hair nervously and looked around. "We shouldn't be in here. We could get caught." I glanced sideways at her. "Maddi, with your powers, we won't get caught."

Maddi rolls her eyes. "Joy. What are you doing anyways?" she asked me. I sighed and took off the device. "Trying to find more mutants." Maddi sighed. "Darren, it's getting close to curfew. You know what'll happen if we get caught." I sighed. "Okay, let's go." I stood up and nodded at Maddi, who waved her hand. She looked the same to me, but I knew that we were both invisible to anyone else who looked at us.

We silently crept out of the room and into the destroyed hallway. This place wasn't always in ruins. It used to be the Jean Grey School For Higher Learning, but during the war it was destroyed and every resident of the school was taken into custody.

We climbed out of the ruins and started to walk down the street. Maddi was struggling to keep our cover up. Her powers allowed her to create and cast illusions, but she had to focus to keep it going.

We crossed the street quickly and soon came to fence that marked the start of the Mutant Camp. Maddi looked at me and shut her eyes. Trembling, she pushed us through the fence. Did I mention that if Maddi tried hard enough, she could push us through solid objects as well?

We walked past the fields and forests until we reached the small houses that showed signs of life. Well, more like shacks. They're nothing compared to what even the poorest norms have. We turned a corner towards the square. There was a whipping going on and a small crowd had gathered.

The ruthless face of the solider only compares to the face of the man tied to the post. Maddi stumbled at the sight and our cover dropped. A solider noticed us nearby, appearing out of nowhere. "Maddi! Maddi!" I pleaded, but Maddi was already weak from effort.

The solider walked up to us. "Codes." He said to us, his voice cold as steel. "Um, 2756. Sir." I muttered to him. Maddi looked at him weakly. "2755." She managed.

"What's wrong with 2755?" he asked. I cleared my throat. "It's the whipping, sir. She got distressed and her powers stressed with her. She just needs sleep, sir."

He eyed me carefully. The sound of the whip cracks in the background and Maddi (playing her role perfectly) whimpered and flinched.

He nodded us through while adding something into his datapod. No doubt Maddi would be in intensive classes tomorrow. She glared at me. "Butt face. Not frisk, Darren." She muttered as she straightened up. We both walked away from the square and headed towards our street.

When we reached our house, I opened the door and was greeted by a very angry Tulia. "Are you insane? You were out again weren't you?" asked us, her accent that she has from being born in the Caribbean more intense than normal.

"Sorry, Tulia." I muttered. She smoothed back her white hair. "Come inside. It's almost time to eat." She informed us. We walked in and Maddi collapsed. I bent over her. "Maddi? You alright?" I asked her.

Tulia's anger came up again. "That's how you didn't get caught! Don't make Maddison use her powers like that!" The water in the pot she had been making trembled. "Calm down! " I warned Tulia and she relaxed again.

I picked up Maddi and put her onto the small couch in the tiny, 3 room shack. However, ours was bigger than most, holding 8 mutants, 4 boys and 4 girls, plus Tulia. The boys slept in one room and the girls slept in the other. Tulia slept on the couch.

Tulia rummaged in the food bin and pulled out some pasta, which she put into the pot. She waved her hand and the water boiled almost at once. "Where are the others?" I asked.

"At the square. We'll be having a guest tonight." Tulia said, some of her greying hair getting into her face. She pushed it out of her eyes. Tulia was the camp's resident healer. She took care of those after whippings and such.

She looked up from the gas stove. "How are your cuts and burns?" she asks me. We both looked down at my arms. The left arm was bandaged with a sterile, white cloth up the arm to my elbow. There was extra padding on my wrist. My right arm had just a bandage on my wrist.

"Fine." I muttered. The room was eerily quietly after that statement. We both remembered why I was here. Two weeks ago, I tried to burn off my barcode. It didn't work. I decided that I didn't want to live in a world where mutants were treated like this, and I slit my wrists. Maddi had found me bleeding out in the woods and brought me to Tulia. After some paperwork, I left me shack and moved to this one.

It's alright. I didn't like my old one anyways.

That's what this home is. It's a halfway house for mentally ill mutant teens and young adults. Maddi had been there the longest out of everybody, nearly a year and a half. She was the first kid Tulia took in. Maddi didn't tell me much, only that she was forced to come here or go to Area 51 for 'treatment'.

Ever since, Maddi and I had been best friends. Of course, we've known one another since way before, our numbers being next to one another, but we hadn't spoken until two weeks ago.

Tulia looked up at me. Suddenly, her white skin looked paler than normal. Her eyes looked defeated and sad. For once, she actually _looked _old.

"Darren, listen to me. We all love you here. Maddi loves you too. Please don't do this to yourself." She said. I looked away. "Whatever." I muttered. Tulia nodded at me. "Go get washed up for dinner."

I nodded, and that's when the siren went off. "W-what?!" I exclaimed. The compute voice said over the intercom.

"ATTENTION: CODE RED. CODE RED. CODE RED. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

Maddi had woken up from her slumber and sat up. "What's going on?" she said. She sounded scared. Tulia's face was hard. "Code Red. Mutants are using their powers to attack the soldiers."

She walked over to the door and threw it open, watching as the soldiers march by. "Good thing the others are at the square. I can see them causing-."

She was interrupted with a large explosion and cloud of smoke and fire coming from square.

" .God." she said, her voice tensing. "Darren, Maddi, stay here!" she ordered.

"But-." Maddi complained.

"Stay. Here." She said, her voice creeping with such anger Maddi backed off. "Don't open door for anyone until I get back. No matter how hard they knock." She said, her voice as cold a steel. She ran out the door, which slammed behind her.

Maddi and I both looked at one another.

_What was going on?_

**Okay! Hello my readers! I'm extremely inspire to write this, and don't worry, my VA story is still going on. I just need more peoples. Hehe.**

**So, here's how it's going down. There was this massive war over mutants and the 'norms' found a way to turn mutant powers into a weapon and the mutants lost the war. After, a treaty was signed. All mutants are kept separated from the happy, normal people.**

**The main heroes and villains from the show are no longer alive or missing, so there is no relation to them. The story mainly focuses on the halfway house that houses mentally ill mutants, run by leader Tulia.**

**See you next chapter!**

**Peace and Mist,**

**Rlb190**


	2. Chapter 2

_10 minutes earlier…_

**Joshua Garrett POV**

We walked silently down the paved roads to the square. I could already hear the crowds forming around the poor man on the pole. Tulia had sent us to collect him once it was over. She had warned us all not to make a scene. Maddi and Darren where god-knows-where and Tulia put me in charge of everyone, well four of us. We didn't know where the others were.

I looked down sharply at my hoodie's pocket. "Bo, either stay still or get out!" I complained. A ginger haired kitten jumped from my pocket to the ground and changed into a a 19-year-old girl. She frowned. "Mean lion! Very mean. Chickadee is more fun." She said. Bo had a little thing about calling people the kind of animal they remind her of. Maddi is the chickadee.

"Whatever, let's just go. "

We moved a little further until we reached the square where the whipping was alright taking place. "Okay, everyone ready?'

Rosalia held up a tiny box. "I got the Band-Aids."

I rolled my eyes and she sighed. "Yeah, yeah." She flashed me the white bandages. The other Joshua, whom we called Josh nodded. Bo was looking around nervous and sniffed the air. "Wrong, wrong. Something wrong. Doesn't smell right. It smells bad."

Stanley Watt, our resident feline hybrid, blinked slowly and nodded as well. "Smells like… sulfur?"

"Sulfur?" I muttered. Bo nodded in agreement.

"Kitty is right." She said. "Sulfur… and…oil? No… No…" she muttered, looking down. "Bad…bad… quiet please. Bad. Very bad. This is bad. Something is bad. Bad." She repeated. I frowned at her. "What's bad, Bo?"

"Bad! Whipping post is bad. Under whipping post is very bad. You should be careful. Stay away. Stay away. Stay away!" she pleaded and grabbed my arm. "Stay! Very bad. Need Chickadee!" she stammered out.

That's when the explosion went off. We were all thrown to the ground from the shock. Bits and pieces of the street and metal went flying in all directions. For a scary moment, I couldn't hear anything.

I saw a piece of metal flying towards a guard, who was busy shouting orders into his datapod. I ran towards him and tackled him out of the way. We both rolled and came to a stop. We both stared at one another before I scrambled up and ran away. It was still quiet. There were small fires everywhere.

Then it all came back at once.

It was eerily quiet until the sirens went off.

"CODE RED, CODE RED."

I ran back to everyone else. I was coughing up smoke, and I'd be removing gravel from my knees for weeks.

"C'mon! We have to go! Now!" I said to everyone who were all staring at me. "Now!" I urged. Rosalia moved first. She stood up quickly and kicked Stanley who stood up as well.

But, Bo was still on the floor in a tight ball. She had her eyes closed and was muttering something over and over. "Bo! Bo! C'mon!" I tried to get her to move but she shook her head. "No..No…please. Quiet! No! No… please!

"Bo! Bo! C'mon! They're arresting everybody! Bo!" I pleaded.

"No! Where is chickadee? She'll help. She'll help." She started to cry.

"Oh god, Bo." I muttered. Maddi and Bo had grown pretty close since Bo had come to the Home. Maddi had been helping Bo take control of her powers through mediation. I had never expected for Bo to depend so much on Maddi.

"Move!' ordered Rosalia. She shoved me out of the way and grabbed Bo. She yanked Bo up and slung her across her back. "Let's go!" she said. All three of us started to move through the smoke. A guard aimed a dart gun at us. "Rosa!" I called out.

Rosalia waved her free hand and the gun exploded into tiny bits. For an extra messure, I changed his memory to never having seen us.

Then, we ran into Tulia. Literally.

"Tulia!" I exclaimed, shocked.

"Joshua! Rosalia! You didn't cause this did you?"

"No! Someone set of a bomb!" I said. Tulia swore. "Those AAM members!" Stanley looked up from looking around. "Ham?" he asked.

"No!" Tulia and I said at the same time and he shrugged. "Sorry." He muttered. Tulia shook her head. "Give me Cassidy, Rosalia." Who obeyed and gave Tulia Bo.

"Let's get out of here. We were at home the entire time, got it?" We all nodded and took off running.

About 5 minutes later we arrived at our home. Tulia made sure everyone got in first before slamming the door shut behind us.

We took a collective gasp of breath and then everybody started talking at once.

"What happened?

"We were just standing there-."

"And someone set off a bomb!"

"You didn't cause this, did you?" asked Tulia.

"No!" everyone said at once.

"Chickadee!" came Bo's cry as she hugged Maddi tightly.

This went on for several minutes until a I noticed something. "Where are the others?" I asked. We were missing a few people.

Tulia's eyes widened. "Oh no! Weren't they with you?"

"No!" both Rosalia and I exclaimed at the same time.

Maddi gasped and we all looked at her. A huge tiger was sitting on top of her. "Someone…get…Bo…off…of…me!" she choked out. Darren walked over and simply pushed Bo lightly off of Maddi, who gasped. "'Bout time!" she complained.

Darren smiled sheepishly.

Tulia sighed and sat on one of the only chairs we had in the house. "The only thing we can do is waiting."

Rosalia cocked her head. "For the others or Bo to shift back to normal?"

"Both." Tulia said. She looked exhausted. "You kids are gonna be the end of me." We all chuckled. There was a knock at the door and the room went dead quiet.

"Here the whole time." Tulia muttered as she walked up to the door and opened it. It was two guards, one holding a quiet blonde kid in handcuffs. Josh! He looked a little worse for wear.

"I believe _this _belongs to you." said one guard, un-cuffing him and shoving him into the house. He stumbled back and started forwards again, but I grabbed his wrist just in time.

For the first time, I noticed the other kid the guards were holding. It was a girl with brown hair. She had a split lip and black eye.

Tulia looked her over as the guards handed her some papers. "This one is yours as well. Be careful, she bites." He said. She rolled her eyes and he shoved her into our home.

"Found her and a few others in the sewers. She was the only we caught." He said, as if adding that extra bit of information would help. They left as quickly as they arrive. We were all staring at her.

She sighed. "I'm Vivi Conners." She said. "And before you ask me, I can only do this." She waved her hand and all of the dirt off the counter fell onto the floor into a neat pile.

Tulia nodded wisely. "Level 2, I suppose?" Vivi nodded. "They made that _quite_ clear." We all had number rankings on how powerful we are. 10 is the highest and 1 is not even having powers. 2 was pretty weak.

Well, so was dirt.

**Okay! Blog is up and I'm working on the other pics soon! Link is on my profile!**

**So, what you guys think happened? I want to know!**

**Peace and Mist,**

**Rlb190**


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